Cremation is a process where a human body is burnt until the corpse becomes its basic carbon components in the form of ash. In Western countries, this process is carried out in a crematorium, the burial or the scattering of remains is usually performed with the use of a capsule or urn.
The burning of the body of a deceased is known in many cultures around the world The ashes of the deceased were either scattered or stored, the ashes were kept in special containers but also in a vase or jug.
The urn as we know it arrived in the middle bronze age, from 1250 to 750 BC. The ashes from the fire of a cremation were known to have been collected in the Neolithic period. Urn burials took place during the Iron Age and were sometimes marked by stone monuments resembling modern headstones.
In the Christian world cremation was rejected for many centuries, the reason is in a narrow, literal understanding of the resurrection of Jesus and any dead person wanting to move on to the next world they needed a body to inhabit.
By the 1800s problems with hygiene and new scientific concepts of spread of disease and sickness combined with a lack of available land in major European cities slowly produced a demand for an alternative way of disposing of loved ones remains.
Doctors decreed that cremation was far more hygienic and best suited to modern living conditions are slowly but surely the practice of cremation rather than burial began to take hold.
It 1886 the Roman Catholic Church condemned the practice as barbaric so cremation spread only in non-catholic Christian countries. It was not until 1964 that the Catholic Church finally lifted its ban on its members being cremated.
For Hindus, cremation is in an open form the common burial method. In Japan the corpse burns at lower temperatures than in Europe. The tradition began in the year 700 with the combustion of the monk Dosho, followed by the Jito-tenno the year 703 and the Emperor Mommu-tenno the year was 707.
Modern cremation in many European countries is now the premier method of interning loved ones.
The rate of cremations is growing across Europe at the rate of approximately 1% each year. Below are the percentage of people who are created in each country each year, the figures are for 1997 the latest year for which figures are available.
* Britain: 70 percent
* Denmark: 65 percent
* Sweden: 60 percent
* Switzerland: 55 percent
* Netherlands: 47.8 percent
* Belgium: 29.5 percent
It is notable that staunchly Catholic countries such as Spain and Italy still have very limited numbers of cremations. In many countries a separate authorization is required to allow the body to be cremated rather than buried. This is due to the fact that once cremated even with modern technology it is impossible to discover if there has been foul play.
In particular, if there is a doubt about the identity of the dead or the cause of death, since a retrospective examination of the corpse exhumation after combustion is no longer possible, authorities wish to be as sure as possible that there are no complications that may arise after cremation.
![[Valid RSS feed]](images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
